Tuesday, October 03, 2017

Father James Martin, S.J., and a formation which looks to the person's final end...

My good friend to the North, Vox Cantoris writes: - about Father James Martin, S.J. -

"Rather than correct the poor child [a transgendered child whose parents want to ensure he is educated in a Catholic school] from what is clearly confusion and probably some kind of mental illness, he leaves him in his state and deceives the parents. He dares to write that it is a 'scandal.'"

For Father Martin, it constitutes a "scandal" that the Catholic school in question has refused the boy entry. But Catholic schools must consider the good of the child.

Are his parents concerned with the good of their child? In other words, is their idea of “the good” in conformity with Church teaching and Canon Law?

Canon 795 of the Code of Canon Law states quite clearly that, “Since a true education must strive for the integral formation of the human person, a formation which looks toward the person’s final end, and at the same time toward the common good of societies, children and young people are to be so reared that they can develop harmoniously their physical, moral and intellectual talents, that they acquire a more perfect sense of responsibility and a correct use of freedom, and that they be educated for active participation in social life.”

So “the good of the child,” according to Holy Mother Church, must consist of a formation which looks toward a child’s final end. And that education is only true which strives for a child’s integral formation and which contributes to the common good. How then can the Church partner with parents who raise their child as "transgendered"?

As Father Vincent Miceli, a great Jesuit scholar and my mentor, once noted, “It is said that ‘the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ But if the person who rocks the cradle is warped and crippled in personality then the world will not be ruled but ruined.”

Father Martin doesn't understand the nature of Catholic formation. But then, he's not the intellectually gifted Jesuit that Father Miceli was.

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About Me

Born in Bitburg, Germany,
Paul Melanson is a Catholic lay-philosopher and apologist whose work has appeared in many publications and websites including The Union Leader, The Wanderer, Seattle Catholic, Newsblaze, Helium, and Amazines. He has been interviewed by The National Catholic Register, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the television newsmagazine Chronicle.